Chapter 17

Copper and rain, an unnervingly potent mix of scents. Skin against jagged rock provides an even more memorable concoction of pain. A wet trickle of warmth licks down my temple as Nex curses at the wind plunging us into the mountain side for the third time. This time it wasn’t my fault though.

“Who the hell trained you before?” He shouts over the wind’s endless roar.

My head is already pounding from our last collide with the rock wall. “No one,” I shout directly into his ear. “I trained myself.”

Nex masterfully pushes off the mountain and swings us out before releasing and redeploying his spear. “No Scavenger trained you any of the times you prepared for the Trials?” His voice fades in and out, the storm swallowing everything.

I keep myself centered on his back despite my instinct to lean and shift and follow the way he moves and maneuvers. My moving is what propelled us into the mountain in the first place.

“The first time, a Scavenger named Nolin gave me the general run down of how the harpoon works. But after I failed and tried out again, no one wanted to train me. So I would sit in one of the arena seats and watch. I’d watch how the Scavengers jumped off the cliff with no fear. Sometimes I’d peer over the edge of the cliff and watch how they maneuvered, how they timed their deploys. I’d just observe.”

A puff of silver mist illuminates the second layer for a second before he accelerates our ascent through the thick curtain of droplets.

“Scavengers are required to at least caution every candidate before every Stormglass Trial. How did anyone allow you to keep trying out without training?” His eyes are so focused on where his spear is planted and timing, but I catch the sharpness of an incredulous edge in his eyes.

The rain has made everything slick, and I tighten my grip around his neck, my cheek pressing against his. “There are no rules against trying out multiple times, and while Scavengers are required to train the candidates to some degree, the candidates are not required to receive it. I wasn’t going to force someone to train me. So I just watched and took note.”

The density of the second layer dilutes to thin grey mist as we soar up through the first layer. “It’s the same with the weapons,” I continue. “I’m only familiar with them because I’ve had five chances to test and try them, and even more opportunities to study what weapons the Scavengers themselves use when preparing for an expedition.”

Nex releases his spear and as we lose momentum, he redeploys, the yank of the rope causing my leg to slip off his hip. But he seamlessly grabs and pulls it back up by my thigh.

“I saw how you handled yourself during the last Trial. If you had told me you already were a Scavenger, I would’ve believed you,” he says simply, but I’m aware, too aware, that my face heats at the compliment and with his cheek pressed against mine, he’s certain to notice.

I try to pull away enough to give myself and him space, but like falling into water, we break through the first layer into endless blue and calm sky. My ears ring from the pressure and volume of the storm and my head is throbbing, but that first intake of air fills my lungs with such crisp air it feels revitalizing. The only sound left is the sound of the harpoon zipping towards the cliff’s edge. I steel myself and dig my fingers into Nex’s shoulders as he doesn’t wait for the harpoon to recoil all the way before releasing. The final momentum sends us above the cliff where he lands in a kneel.

“Show off,” I grumble and slide off his back. I wipe my wet hair off my forehead and wring it out. Nex merely shakes his drenched hair at me like a soaked mountain goat.

“Only when it counts,” he jibes and winks at me, which is still irritating but a little endearing too.

“Now if I could just spot the fourth layer in time, we wouldn’t get so many cuts and scrapes,” I say with a half-hearted smile. It’s a cheap shot at myself, but after the second run and I both missed the fourth layer each time and unbalanced us enough to slam us against the mountain, my body and confidence took a beating. I stop myself from stomping my foot. “Why can’t I get it right?” A question for myself and augmentation to my failure.

Nex shucks off the harness before returning it to its hook. “It takes time and practice, which is what we’re doing right now.” He walks towards me, wringing out the bottom of his untucked shirt. “You’ve tried out in the Stormglass Trials five times and both survived and managed to help someone else survive—”

“Which got me—”

“Not the point right now,” he intercedes right back. “You made it. Five times. So did someone else each time. How?”

The sun plays with the dark nuances of his hair, coaxing out the warm brown hiding there, and even with his soaked clothing and a definite limp from our training, the sun does something to his demeanor. It softens him, even with the gleaming scars dusting his face like morbid freckles, he’s warm and soft and gentle. Even his eyes, scanning my face with a curious light, his head tilting slightly at my pause, aren’t as lively as when they’re in the middle of a storm or he’s riled up. They’re calm, like silver waters flowing downstream.

I draw in a breath, closing my eyes. “I feel it. Don’t ask me how because I don’t know, but I never navigated by sight, even the first time. I followed how I felt, how the storm felt and reacted around me. Once or twice I even tested myself by closing my eyes for a good chunk of my fall.” I breathe out a small chuckle, looking up at him again through dark lashes.

Nex releases a breathy chuckle and a slashing grin. “You don’t like doing things the easy way, do you?”

I huff at him, but don’t need to feign the smile tugging. “Speaking of.” I stride to the wall and pull down two harpoons. “It’ll be a lot easier to investigate the mountain side if we are both harnessed.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

He sighs as he grabs the harness from me and steps into it. I buckle my harness, a shiver running through me.

“Do you think the tremors and increase in frost storms could be from the storm growing?” I ask, stretching my arms out as I tilt my head back. The morning sun warms my very bones, a welcomed reprieve from the rain-soaked clothing clinging to my skin and leeching any warmth from me.

Nex braces his hands in his hips in contemplation. “It’s possible. But it’s also very likely that they’re unrelated. Simple environmental changes like an earlier winter or shorter spring could be enough to trigger a later reaction.”

“But that’s not what the Occasean court believes, right? They fully believe the storm is growing,” I add, lining the tip of my boots up with the edge of the cliff.

Nex ambles up next to me, his eyes staring off, glazed. “From my understanding, yes.”

“Then they must have some sort of proof of that, else they wouldn’t go to such great lengths to convince Helios and organize a protest.”

“It appears so,” he answers as distantly as his gaze.

“We should request a meeting then. With High Lord Caelus. Convince him to show us his proof, and that could help us prove to the king that there is a threat that needs to be dealt with,” I declare like a battle plan.

Irreverent amusement paints his face in that same vexing light as when I first held him at gun point.

“We could.” He turns around, his back to the edge. “Or we could find out for ourselves.” Then he takes a step back and disappears off the cliff.

I snort. “Definitely a show off.” I follow into the open air.

***

We find only white-washed empty space. We scour the bald rock face, struggling against the wind ripping at our clothes. But we find nothing in the first layer of the storm.

“Go lower!” I shout to Nex who is palming a smooth area of rock below me. He acknowledges that he’s heard me by pulling the trigger to expand the spearhead for a moment to release it from the rock before it recoils. He falls into the dark grey matter without looking back, and I follow shortly after.

I fall at a dangerous speed, plowing through the surface of the second layer, and I smile and close my eyes. I would never admit that the second layer’s dense misty fog feels like ribbons of warm smoke wrapping around me in soothing movements.

I deploy my spear and I come to a halt in the middle of the second layer without ever opening my eyes. But I feel it. The presence. Like the storm knows I’m there and let’s me pass through. And if I told anyone of it, I would be dragged away by guards just like any other Carver.

I splay my hands on the rock wall, sliding along it in search of any deeper crevice or crack. I find none. Nothing but a consistent, low sound, like a hum coming from my hands. The mountain is humming, singing amidst the storm, and suddenly it’s all I can hear. The power rolling through the air, wrapping around my very bones.

My eyes fly open.

No, not singing, not humming. Vibrations. Tremors.

“Look out!” Nex yells from out of sight, but close enough to have spotted the cascade of boulders flaking off the mountain above us, flying down towards us.

I fling myself against the mountain, flattening myself to the point of pain. But the boulders crash through the air like old-fashioned bullets cutting through smoke.

In an instant, I’m met with more pain. Not from the boulders, but from the solid body crushing me roughly against the mountain. My face scrapes the rock surface, but Nex gathers all of me within the boundaries of his frame and forces me to practically melt into the mountain. The scent of sunshine traveling on a crisp wind envelopes me as the entire length of his body melds with mine. I can see his gloved hand clutching the rocks beside my face, feel his chin holding my head down.

How did he even get here so fast?

But any thoughts I have are blown to smithereens as the boulders rain down, ricocheting off the rock wall above us. Below us. Around us. The world convulses with each boulder slamming the mountain side, and we quake with it. The mountain itself may as well have been tumbling down around us. But I focus on the thundering pounding of the chest pressed against my back. Louder and stronger than any falling boulder, Nex’s heart lulls me into a bubble of idle assurance. Foolish assurance. But I cling to it. More than I cling to the trembling mountain, I claw for the assurance that a boulder won’t wipe us off the mountain within the next major quake.

“Hesperia!” I scream at the hidden deity, scream for any mercy she may have stored in her reserves for someone like me. Someone unworthy.

Please.

I beg, if not for me, then for her mercy to pass to Nex, no matter his disbelief. As if in response, a strong arm wraps across my chest and around my quivering shoulders, holding me steady when the world feels like it’s falling apart. But instead, it stills. The only trembling left is found in the pulsating quiver inside me. The storm breathes again, the wind the only force tugging at us.

“Ryn, are you okay?” Nex asks, his voice gruff and strained.

I don’t respond. All my effort is focused on regulating my breathing. Grounding myself. Dispelling that unnerving trembling corded inside me.

“I need you to answer, Ryn. I need you to say the words out loud.” The snag in his voice sends a different kind of quiver through me, and it jerks me back to the storm, to the second layer, to Nex.

“I’m okay,” I breathe as if my head was under water and it just broke the surface.

Faster than I can process, I’m flipped around, and the entire front of my body is now pressed against the entirety of his. His hands brace beside my head, his chest drawing in ragged breaths, but his face is a mosaic of emotions. Something wild roams his eyes as they flick to every area of my face and body he can see, searching. Searching for something. Something specific that he’s expecting to find.

His brows release their tense hold as he doesn’t find what he was looking for.

“Are you—” I swallow. “Are you okay?”

He releases a breath, of either relief or tension, the caress of his hand replacing the tickle his breath left on my face. It curves around my cheek, settling on my neck, leaving electric pulses in its wake. But that wild look in his eye barely falters as he studies me with his fingers, like he’s stunned. Shocked.

“Yeah.” He blinks in disbelief, then drops his hand and lowers his arm to allow me to slide out from his hold.

He’s really shaken up. Not mad like when he had to catch me from falling. Just… shaken.

I angle myself to release and deploy my spear, and do so with Nex following my every movement. Once my spear is firmly secured in the mountain above me, I pull the third trigger, and send myself flying through the tangible ribbons of dark fog, through waves of mist, past nuanced mountain face covered in—

My head bows drastically as I continue my speedy ascent, my eye zeroing in on the area below.

A crack. Not small by any means. Slicing across the mountain in craggy curves and sharp drops till a wide slash drops downward into the swirling darkness. A gash in the foundation to weaken the mountain, liquid trickling from it. Whether that crack had been there before the tremor and boulders or not doesn’t matter.

We have an effect. Now we need a cause.